Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement - the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality."

Each day we deal with the challenges of ordinary life: a series of mundane experiences that could be summarized by the title of this book, Work, Sex, Money. We all hope that these aspects of our life will be a source of fulfillment and pleasure, and they often are. Yet they are also always sources of problems for which we seek practical advice and solutions.

Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah

This collection brings together for the first time Ajahn Chah's most powerful teachings, including those on meditation, liberation from suffering, calming the mind, enlightenment and the "living dhamma". Most of these talks have previously only been available in limited, private editions and the publication of Food for the Heart, therefore, represents a momentous occasion: the hugely increased accessibility of his words and wisdom.

Making Friends with Your Mind: The Key to Contentment

Have you ever found yourself thinking your way into a tangle of fret, frustration, or gloom? And then something small - a few kind words, the sun glancing through the clouds, a warm cup of tea - gave you a welcome pause from all your inner chatter? With
Making Friends with Your Mind, that's what Pema Chödrön helps us to do, not by chance but with our full intention: to stop fighting with our thoughts and reopen ourselves to wonder as naturally as we breathe.

Noble Heart: A Self-Guided Retreat on Befriending Your Obstacles

You can't get away from suffering. That's the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences, you will find the seeds of your awakening. On
Noble Heart, this best-selling author and Tibetan Buddhist nun shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource amid life's difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart, one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight.

The Miracle of Mindfulness: The Classic Guide to Meditation by the World's Most Revered Master

In this beautifully written book, Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh explains how to acquire the skills of mindfulness. Once we have these skills, we can slow our lives down and discover how to live in the moment - even simple acts like washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea may be transformed into acts of meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle anecdotes and practical exercises help us to arrive at greater self-understanding and peacefulness, whether we are beginners or advanced.

Walking the Walk: Putting the Teachings into Practice When It Matters Most

It's one thing to hear a life-changing truth or to have a conceptual grasp on spiritual wisdom. But it’s another thing to "walk the walk" - or to put into practice the good advice we've been given. What does it mean to walk the walk in our everyday lives? According to Pema Chödrön, it means being down-to-earth, genuine, and perhaps most importantly, it means engaging in the teachings in order to actively confront anything and everything we’ve heretofore rejected in our attempts to find happiness.

Coming Closer to Ourselves: Making Everything the Path of Awakening

In challenging times, why do so many of us turn to Pema Chödrön for guidance? Many say that it’s her honest and caring way of communicating the core teachings of Buddhism - not just conceptually, but directly from her heart to ours. In these inspiring sessions, she teaches us how to give that compassion to the person we neglect most often - ourselves.

Body and Mind Are One: A Training in Mindfulness

When your body and mind work together as one, you are fully and naturally present in the moment. This is the essence of mindfulness practice - allowing us to touch the wonders of life in the here and now.
Body and Mind Are One is at once a practical teaching series covering fundamental Buddhist principles for a joyful life and a living transmission of insight from beloved Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who has practiced, shared, and lived this profound wisdom for over seven decades.

How to See Yourself as You Really Are

In
How to See Yourself as You Really Are, the world's foremost Buddist leader teaches listeners how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic and loving perspective

Abiding in Mindfulness, Volume 2: On Feeling, the Mind, and Dhamma

In the words of the Buddha, the four foundations of mindfulness (the four satipat­t­hana) are "the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha (suffering) and discontent, for acquiring the true method, for the realization of Nibbana." Within the quintessential discourse called the Satipat­t­hana Sutta, we find the Buddha's seminal teachings about the practice of meditation.

The Practice of Pure Awareness: Somatic Meditation for Touching Infinity

How can we discover this perfect, somatic knowing? It begins by removing the blockages that manifest mentally, emotionally, and physically. Join Reggie Ray as he presents the practice of pure awareness in nine guided, sequential sessions that lead to the direct experience of our true nature. Emphasizing deep relaxation, the power in the lower belly, opening the central channel, and the significance of posture, Reggie helps us unfold ever-subtler realizations of our capacities to love and heal.

Abiding in Mindfulness, Volume 1: The Body

In the words of the Buddha, the four foundations of mindfulness (the four satipatthanas) are "the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha (suffering) and discontent, for acquiring the true method, for the realization of Nibbana." Within the quintessential discourse called the Satipatthana Sutta, we find the Buddha's seminal teachings about the practice of meditation.

Awakening Love: Teachings and Practices to Cultivate a Limitless Heart

Have you ever wanted to love and connect with others more deeply... but felt that you could use a little help shedding your "emotional armor" and opening your heart? With Awakening Love, Pema Chodron invites you to start wherever you are, amid any and all of the challenges, frustrations, or fears you may be facing, and to use them as the starting place to awaken the natural and boundless capacity to give and receive love more fully.

Somatic Descent: Experiencing the Ultimate Intelligence of the Body

With
Somatic Descent, you are invited to tune in to the natural wisdom of your body, refine and amplify it, and explore it fully. In this program pioneering teacher Dr. Reggie Ray presents a fascinating audio program on this rich dimension of Tibetan Buddhism: how to go beyond the veil of the thinking mind to tap the wondrous yet wholly trustworthy domain of your body.

In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings - in his own words. The American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into 10 thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight.

On
Getting Unstuck, Pema Chodron introduces a rare Tibetan teaching she received from her teacher, Dzigar Kontrul Rinpoche, and one that has become critical to her practice. Here, she unveils the mystery of an ineffable quality; a "pre-emotional" feeling that arises in us, brings us discomfort, and causes us to react by escaping the discomfort, often with harmful habits. With
Getting Unstuck, she offers us a first look at "both the itch and the scratch": what Tibetan Buddhists call shenpa.

Publisher's Summary

The rewards of mindfulness practice are well proven: reduced stress, improved concentration, and an overall sense of well-being. But those benefits are just the beginning. Mindfulness in action - mindfulness applied throughout life - can help us work more effectively with life's challenges, expanding our appreciation and potential for creative engagement.

This guide to mindful awareness through meditation provides all the basics to get you started but also goes deeper to address the questions that naturally arise as your practice matures and further insight arises. A distillation of teachings on the subject by one of the great meditation masters of our time, this book serves as an introduction to the practice as well as a guide to the ongoing mindful journey.

This was bad. The narrative was preachy and unhelpful. I kept waiting for guidance on mindfulness but none was forthcoming. I would not recommend this to anyone wanting to get help with practising mindfulness. The narrator was annoying. I will not purchase anything by this author / narrator again.

First of all, I could listen to Roger Clark read the phone book. His assured narration gives me the impression of being in an imaginary, idealized Oxford lecture hall where I may not always be following along, but I'm happy to be here.

Second, for a novice and halfhearted meditator like myself, these lectures give a clear idea of what I'm trying to do— Let go of my own dogma and be present. Chögyam Trungpa, Pema Chodron's teacher, talks at length of different paths to finding mindfulness. Overall I found this helpful, empathetic, and even entertaining.

15 of 16 people found this review helpful

José Pimentel

Santo Domingo.

13/01/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"A benchmark in mindfullness and self-discovery."

This masterpiece from Trungpa, clearly describes the destructive loopholes of our self-centered thinking, and addresses the meditation process as a long-life discipline needed to root out the ego and start the awereness and living of the present moment.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

J. Derrick Schuring

canton, ohio United States

24/08/16

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Performance

Story

"Always Sublime"

The marriage of Roger Clark's voice and Trungpa's words never disappoints. I believe I have listened to every one of Clark's narrations of this wise lama's books and it is as if his voice is the voice of Trungpa Rinpoche.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Dmitry Perl

12/07/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Strange text, strange narrator"

Any additional comments?

Simplistic and rather banal "philosophy", general rhetoric, boring ideas, narrated by the voice which better suited to give orders than talk about mindful meditations, All this made me drop this piece.

1 of 18 people found this review helpful

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